This task, to determine which small tube amps will have the greatest chance to be able to produce a drug-like sound, is very dependent on the speakers being used. But each amp does have general characteristics that we can try and talk about on a ‘generic’ speaker.

As a generic speaker, let’s just imagine we did a melting together of the following [we are leaving out extremely hard to drive speakers and those that have issues] $12K to $25K speakers: Kharma 3.2, Avantgarde Duo, Marten Getz, Marten Miles, Wilson Sophia, Quad, the small Gershwin, Audio Machina, and all of the many Audio Note speakers in this price range… [I am trying to think of all the speakers that had micro-dynamics – and therefore a chance to be drug-like – when I have heard them driven by small tube amps in this price range. I know I am forgetting a few. There are also quite a few above $25K].

Others in this price range I have heard have good micro-dynamics driven by good solid-state: Avalon Opus/Indra, SoundLab, …

This is a really funny exercise for me… for example, a lot of these speakers often have so-so [or worse] Boy Toy amps on them at most shows and sound, you guessed it, so-so [or just bad]. Many more speakers might do fine with small tube amps – but there is so much pressure to create that Boy Toy sound at shows [we feel this pressure ourselves when we exhibit at shows], that exhibitors [and no doubt your average dealers] take the path of least resistance and put a big Boy Toy amp on the speakers.

Why is there this pressure to show Boy Toy sound?

Anyway… [including Joule Electra and Atma-Sphere here with the small amps, being OTL and all. Lars is by Engström & Engström. VAC is here because… it has more of a small amp sound]

Micro-Dynamics =>
Jolida – Rogue – Cary – Art Audio – Pathos – Atma-Sphere – Manley – ASL – Air Tight – Tri – Joule Electra – Conrad Johnson – Audio Valve —> Mastersound – Nagra – WAVAC – VAC – Zanden – Berning OTL —> Lars – Audio Note – Lamm

Micro-Harmonics / Harmonic Purity =>
Pathos – Rogue – Atma-Sphere – Jolida – WAVAC – Cary – Air Tight – Manley – ASL – Art Audio – Tri – Conrad Johnson – Nagra —> VAC – Berning OTL – Mastersound – Joule Electra —> Lars – Zanden – Lamm – Audio Note

[This is just a VERY general categorization, it REALLY depends a LOT on the speakers you are using – though less so with the amps with very-high-quality output stages like Audio Note and Berning or beefier outputs like VAC, Joule-Electra.

TBD: Shindo have not been heard with equipment of known decent quality – i..e their sound has not impressed but the associated equipment could have been the potential culprit. Have not heard Jadis in a long time (but they will be at CES 2011)

—> indicates a wider gap. Elsewhere one could, arguably, perhaps, swap an amp with its neighbor amp or two.

Mixing Micro-harmonics and Harmonic purity like this in the same list was convenient but might be a mistake although I believe both contribute to a drug like complexity to the sound].

OK. Comments?

Hopefully the examination and categorization of small tubes amps will bridge the gap between everything we’ve talked about with respect to identifying drug-like sound characteristics and actually building systems that produce drug-like sounds.

As a little refresher [I think as much for me as you all]:

We are classifying things into 4 different kinds of systems:

Boy Toy systems: make loud noises
Gee Whiz systems: use really cool technology
Practical systems: are easy to listen to music on
Drug-like systems: evoke intense musical experiences

Drug-like sounds require three things:

1) A significant complexity [which perhaps triggers latent similar patterns of associations in the brain] which can be in the dynamic, harmonic, timing [we have experienced amazing effects with delays, and there is of course PRaT, as well as melodic interplay between threads of a melody], and detail domain: micro-dynamics, micro-harmonics [or very rich and/or pure harmonics], extremely fine timing, micro-details… Anything which adds [likely fractal-like] complexity

2) Something for our practical mind to focus on so it can ignore all the things that are wrong with the sound

3) No significant bad behavior

I want to say [to make our model as simple as possible] that 2) is largely personal preference and 3) is an absolute [for our purposes here]. So, for example, people who absolutely MUST have realistic dynamics [or deep soundstages, or whatever] in their system [which is fine], will never achieve a drug-like sound if they build a system that has insufficient harmonic integrity [we are not talking lean, we are talking Sahara desert].

Most people [if they are lucky!] build systems around 2) [personal preferences – what their practical mind demands] and then continually adjust cables and components to address the resultant 3) bad behavior caused by the way they built their system [unlucky people never even get to 2)]

[We see a lot of, dare I say it, weird 2) personal preferences [absolute MUST HAVE requirements] for just ONE of the following, strangely ignoring EVERYTHING ELSE about the sound: Soundstage width, soundstage depth, punch, room pressurization, air, bass detail, soundstage behind the speakers, soundstage in front of the speakers, absolutely no room interaction, etc. And every single person thinks that their personal preference is so obviously the most important thing about the sound and that everybody is trying to dupe them into thinking it is not :-). It was this observation that inspired much of the agnostic approach in the, for example, speakers guides in the Audiophile’s Guide to the Galaxy].

One approach to system building, which we do for a lot of people who are either like us [we pretty much want everything across the board to be equally great up to the point of unaffordability] or who do not know what their personal preferences are, is to build a system that satisfies what a REASONABLE person’s preferences should be for 2), with no bad behavior 3) up front, and then tune a single piece of equipment to be awesomely rich and transparent and provide the complexity [or is at least complexity capable] for drug-like sounds.

OK, getting to the small tube amps…

In order to build affordable drug-like systems the idea is to examine the range of small tube amps and the speakers they will drive [perhaps including some of the better solid-state amps as options for some speakers] and pick one. This will take care of most of the requirements of most people for 2) with minimal bad behavior 3). Then we will figure out how to add that extra special something [or preserve what is already there if the amp or speaker is the thing with the ‘special sauce’] to get the system from being Practical to being Drug-like.

… to be continued…

[Sorry about the peek-a-boo with the last post. We should be able to repost it any day now – certainly before CES :-)]

Here is our silly picture of a note once again, in all its pure pristineness

This is persistent background noise, like tape hiss.

This is background noise that gets louder as each note gets louder.

The is background noise that is about 3dB, say, below the average volume of the notes, along with a little delay. Notice how this eats into the micro-dynamics. The delay could be caused by everything from slow discharging electronics to room echos.

This is yet another kind of noise that just kind of throws a lot of garbage into each part of the note, making it sound less distinct and pure than it should.

This is another kind of noise that appear on steep leading edges of notes.

We’ve all certainly heard all these types of noise, and more.

One thing we can say for certain about all these types of noise is that they are annoying [that’s why we call it NOISE :-)] and distracts from any drug-like effect we are trying to achieve.

We talk about the importance of micro-dynamics to achieve any drug-like effect – but as we can see [kind of] the absence of many types of noise is often required before we can even begin to HEAR micro-dynamics [assuming we have any to hear].

In other words, in order for any micro-dynamics to even show up against the background sound, we need the music to be fairly well-behaved: not too much noise, not bright and edgy, not rolled off, not drowned out by bass, delays not too long that they interfere with the micro-dynamics of the other notes, delays not too short that they distract our ears – acting like faux micro-dynamics in themselves., etc.

This kind of rules out a lot of systems from being drug-like contenders.

But it also rules in quite a few components.

As a wild-eyed [or sleepy-eyed] guess, I’d say:

40-60%? of speakers should be flat enough in the midrange and not extremely terrible in the outer freq to qualify as well-behaved

40%? or so of small tube amps as well

5%? of large tube amps

10%? of solid-state amps

20%? of preamps

20%? of CD players

90%? of turntables

20%? of cables

The rest are too bright or blurred, frequency shifting, compressive, too much NOISE, or whatever…

[Note that it is important, as always, to match amp to speaker. Incorrectly matched amp/speaker pairs will have a much smaller chance of achieving a drug-like sound. I would say ZERO chance except in the (not uncommon) case where a small tube amp – say a 2A3-tube based amp – is paired with a good but not terribly efficient speaker in order to get the drug-like effect in a very narrow freq range – the rest of the freq being out to a very long lunch.].